I just got a taste of my own medicine and it didn’t taste like chocolate. It was like a reflux burp just after you’ve taken a bitter pill like penicillin. I hate everything.
Yesterday, I posted a note that began with this quote:
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” - Henry David Thoreau
Later, I published something I wrote this week - something I felt relatively good about, mainly because it felt good writing it.
And then, this morning, I read it again and saw a handful of errors that I somehow missed when proofing it the first 300 times. HOW.
I started the usual spiral, and then thought, What do you see? That’s what matters.
I can choose to fixate on mistakes, as though I’m the only writer (and only human) who makes them. OR, counter offer, I can choose to see that I wrote. That I published it. That I didn’t unpublish it after that. That all of this is progress from not writing at all, or writing and not publishing.
I can also see a post that came from HELLA hard recovery work, and is a sign of healing. What a shame it would be to override that with a fixation on some punctuation errors, a spacing problem or two, and a missing letter.
I see an opportunity to shrug off being human, and embrace the progress I’ve fought hard for.
So, thank you again, Mr. Thoreau.